Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

A 1581 pliego suelto (chapbook) in Madrid’s Biblioteca Nacional recounts the story of an unnamed Spanish woman had traveled to Jerusalem, where she suffered martyrdom. Although it purports to be a true account, the story is most likely a pious fiction. The unnamed woman is depicted as Christ figure: she preaches, heals, baptizes, makes enemies and meets her death at the same place, in a similar way and at the same time of year as Jesus. Like St. Ignatius of Loyola, she travels to the Holy Land without money, trusting in God. Like numerous martyrs, she actively courts death by fearlessly preaching to a hostile audience, and when offered the chance to save herself by converting to Islam, she refuses. The text closes by declaring her a credit to Spain, and a woman worth imitating. But while the author extols her virtues and all but calls her a saint, he never once names her. The simple goal of this paper is to situate this account in its historical context, together with its literary context of pilgrim narratives, hagiography, and martyrology, in order to tease out not only how a Spanish Christian writer perceived the Muslim other during a time of heightened tension, but also what it has to say about sanctity and insanity, about religious zeal, and about the lengths a zealot might go to in order to save souls.